The Little Schools for the few only.

different conclusion. Bishop Dupanloup, indeed, spoke of the public schools of France as "ces gouffres." This is not what is said or thought of the English schools, and they are filled with boys whose fathers and grandfathers were brought up in them, and desire above all things to maintain the old traditions.

§ 15. The Little Schools of Port-Royal aimed at training a few boys very differently; each master had the charge of five or six only, and these were never to be out of his presence day or night.*

16. It may reasonably be objected that such schools would be possible only for a few children of well-to-do parents, and that men who would thus devote themselves could be found only at seasons of great enthusiasm. Under ordinary circumstances small schools have most of the drawbacks and few of the advantages which are to be found in large

dangers of our Public School System are enormous. It is the simple truth that do what you will in the way of precaution, you do give to boys of low, animal natures, the very boys who ought to be exceptionally subject to almost despotic restraint, exceptional opportunities of exercising a debasing influence over natures far more refined and spiritual than their own. And it is further the simple but the sad truth, that these exceptional opportunities are too often turned to account, and that the young boy's character for a time-sometimes for a long time is spoiled or vulgarized by the influence of unworthy companions." This is what public schoolmasters, if their eyes are not blinded by routine, are painfully conscious of. But they find that in the end good prevails; the average boy gains a manly character and contributes towards the keeping up a healthy public opinion which is of great effect in restraining the evil-doer.

"The number of boarders was never very great, because to a master were assigned no more than he could have beds for in his room." (Fontaine's Mémoire, Carré, p. 24.)

Advantages of great schools.

schools. As I have already said, parents, schoolmasters, and school-fellows have separate functions in education; and even in the smallest school the master can never take the place of the parent, or the school become the home Children at home enter into the world of their father and mother; the family friends are their friends, the family events affect them as a matter of course. But in the school, however small, the children's interests are unconnected with the master and the master's family. The boys may be on the most intimate, even affectionate terms with the grown people who have charge of them; but the mental horizon of the two parties is very different, and their common area of vision but small. In such cases the young do not rise into the world of the adults, and it is almost impossible for the adults to descend into theirs. They are "no company" the one for the other, and to be constantly in each other's presence would subject both to very irksome restraint. When left to themselves, boys in small numbers are far more likely to get into harm than boys in large numbers. In large communities even of boys, "the common sense of most" is a check on the badly disposed. So as it seems to me if from any cause the young cannot live at home and attend a day-school, they will be far better off in a large boarding school than in one that would better fulfil the requirements of Erasmus,* Saint-Cyran, and Locke.

* "Plerisque placet media quædam ratio, ut apud unum Præcer tɔrera quinque sexve pueri instituantur: ita nec sodalitas deerit ætati, cui convenit alacritas; neque non sufficiet singulis cura Præceptoris; et facile vitabitur corruptio quam affert multitudo. Many take up with a middle course, and would have five or six boys placed with one preceptor; in this way they will not be without companionship at an age when from their liveliness they seem specially to need it, and the master

Choice of masters & servants. Watch & pray.

$ 17. As Saint-Cyran attributed immense importance to the part of the master in education, he was not easily satisfied with his qualifications. "There is no occupation in the Church that is more worthy of a Christian; next to giving up one's life there is no greater charity The charge of the soul of one of these little ones is a higher employment than the government of all the world." (Cadet, 2.) So thought Saint-Cyran, and he was ready to go to the ends of the earth to find the sort of teacher he wanted.

§ 18. He was so anxious that the children should see only that which was good that the servants were chosen with peculiar care.

§ 19. For the masters his favourite rule was: 'Speak little; put up with much; pray still more." Piety was not to be instilled so much by precepts as by the atmosphere in which the children grew up. "Do not spend so much time in speaking to them about God as to God about them :" so formal instruction was never to be made wearisome. But there was to be an incessant watch against evil influences and for good. "In guarding the citadel," says Lancelot, we fail if we leave open a single gateway by which the enemy might enter."

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§ 20. Though anxious, like the Jesuits, to make their boys' studies "not only endurable, but even delightful,” the Gentlemen of Port-Royal banished every form of rivalry Each pupil was to think of one whom he should try to catch up, but this was not a school-fellow, but his own higher self, his

may give sufficient care to each individual; moreover, there will be an easy avoidance of the moral corruption which numbers bring." Erasmus on Christian Marriage quoted by Coustel in Sainte-Beuve, P. Riij, bk. 4, p. 404.

No rivalry or pressure. Freedom from routine.

ideal. Here Pascal admits that the exclusion of competition had its drawbacks and that the boys sometimes became indifferent-"tombent dans la nonchalance," as he says.

§ 21. As for the instruction it was founded on this principle: the object of schools being piety rather than knowledge there was to be no pressure in studying, but the children were to be taught what was sound and enduring.

§ 22. In all occupations there is of necessity a tradition. In the higher callings the tradition may be of several kinds. First there may be a tradition of noble thoughts and high ideals, which will be conveyed in the words of the greatest men who have been engaged in that calling, or have thought out the theory of it. Next there will be the tradition of the very best workers in it. And lastly there is the tradition of the common man who learns and passes on just the ordinary views of his class and the ordinary expedients for getting through ordinary work. Of these different kinds of tradition, the school-room has always shown a tendency to keep to this last, and the common man is supreme. Young teachers are mostly required to fulfil their daily tasks without the smallest preparation for them; so they have to get through as best they can, and have no time to think of any high ideal, or of any way of doing their work except that which gives them least trouble. "Practice makes perfect," says the proverb, but it would be truer to say that practice in doing work badly soon makes perfect in contentment with bad workmanship. Thus it is that the tradition of the school-room settles down for the most part into a deadly routine, and teachers who have long been engaged in carrying it on seem to lose their powers of vision like horses who urn mills in the dark.

The Gentlemen of Port-Royal worked free from school

Study a delight. Reading French first.

room tradition. "If the want of emulation was a drawback," says Sainte-Beuve, "it was a clear gain to escape from all routine, from all pedantry. La crasse et la morgue des

régents n'en approchaient pas."

(P.R. vol. iij, p. 414) Piety

as we have seen was their main object. Next to it they wished to "carry the intellects of their pupils to the highest point they could attain to."

23. In doing this they profited by their freedom from routine to try experiments. They used their own judgments and sought to train the judgment of their pupils. Themselves knowing the delights of literature, they resolved that their pupils should know them also. They would banish all useless difficulties and do what they could to "help the young and make study even more pleasant to them than play and pastime." (Preface to Cic.'s Billets, quoted by SainteBeuve, vol. iij, p. 423.)

It

§ 24. One of their innovations, though startling to their contemporaries, does not seem to us very surprising. was the custom to begin reading with a three or four years' course of reading Latin, because in that language all the letters were pronounced. The connexion between sound and sense is in our days not always thought of, but even among teachers no advocates would now be found for the old method which kept young people for the first three or four years uttering sounds they could by no possibility ⚫ understand. The French language might have some disadvantage from its silent letters, but this was small compared with the disadvantage felt in Latin from its silent sense. So the Port-Royalists began reading with French.

§ 25. Further than this, they objected to reading through spelling, and pointed out that as consonants cannot be pronounced by themselves they should be taken only in